6 Reasons Why WPBeginner Switched to SiteGround Hosting

Earlier this year, we switched WPBeginner website to SiteGround web hosting. Several readers noticed the change in our footer area which now says “WordPress hosting by SiteGround” and asked us to write about why did we make the switch.

When it comes to running an online business, choosing the right web hosting platform for your needs is crucial for your success.

In this article, I will share 6 reasons why we switched to SiteGround, and how they helped us boost WordPress speed, improve reliability, and implement a better workflow.

Background

Since I launched WPBeginner in 2009 (almost eleven years ago), our blog has grown to become the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.

When I first started WPBeginner, I used shared hosting by HostGator. As the site grew, we upgraded to a VPS, then a dedicated server, and even a custom built cloud infrastructure six months ago.

During these years of running WPBeginner and growing my portfolio of companies, I have tested and used just about every major website hosting platform.

Even today, I have both active and test websites on many different hosting platforms, so we can stay updated with new features each company releases. This helps us make the right recommendations to our users based on their needs / budget.

However, over the last 3 years, we have been switching many of our big websites to SiteGround’s Enterprise hosting infrastructure.

WPBeginner was one of the few big sites of ours that hadn’t made the switch to SiteGround, and it just kept becoming harder and harder to resist the temptation.

SiteGround team simply kept innovating, delivering VIP customer service, and building unique tools to make the hosting experience better for both our users and our team.

And in January 2020, after 10.5 years of existence, WPBeginner website has finally switched to a new host, SiteGround.

6 Reasons Why We Switched to SiteGround

When it comes to WordPress hosting, the most important factors for me are: speed, reliability, support, and tools that improves dev workflow.

Below are the top 6 reasons why we switched to SiteGround hosting.

Note: we’re on SiteGround’s Enterprise Hosting which is built and optimized specifically for our needs. Although a lot of the similar things are also offered on their various hosting plans.

1. SiteGround is now on Google Cloud Platform (Fully Managed)

As a hosting enthusiast, when SiteGround CEO, Tenko Nikolov, first told me about this news I was excited beyond words. It was really hard for me to keep this a secret for this long.

Previously all SiteGround customer websites were hosted on one of their data centers either in USA or Europe. The private data center providers did a great job with keeping up with new hardware technologies, but the switch to Google’s Cloud Platform is a game-changer.

It simply unlocks a lot of performance and reliability improvement since Google has a state-of-the-art network.

The best part is that SiteGround made this platform improvement available for all their customers (not just Enterprise users). Yes, this means that even if you signup for their starter WordPress hosting plan ($3.95 per month), you’re going to be hosted on Google’s Cloud Platform.

This is a huge deal because you get all the benefits of scaling and resource management without worrying about behind the scenes stuff (since the entire setup is managed by SiteGround).

It’s a fact that Google and Amazon offer top-notch cloud platforms. The challenge is that they’re not easy to use for small business owners which is a huge disadvantage.

SiteGround is now leveling the playing field for small businesses by helping them compete with the big guys. This aligns with our core values at WPBeginner and Awesome Motive.

2. Maximum Uptime with Multi-regional Failover Setup

Reliability and site uptime is a huge priority for us because it impacts user experience.

Imagine going to a store in the middle of the day only to see a temporary closed sign. It’s an extremely frustrating experience, and you simply move on to a different store.

This is exactly how users feel when they visit a website that’s experiencing downtime.

SiteGround’s Enterprise team used Google Cloud Platform to design a reliable multi-regional failover setup for us.

This means that in rare situations when a specific Google datacenter region experiences downtime, our website traffic will be routed to a different region, so our readers always have the best experience.

3. The Best-in-Class Enterprise Support Team

Quality support is a very important factor when choosing a web hosting company. This is why many businesses pay extra for managed WordPress hosting, so they can get their problems resolved faster.

My various companies collectively spend several hundred thousand dollars every year on hosting related expense (yes that’s multiple six figures per year). Our costs are high because we serve billions of impressions monthly across our websites.

Depending on the size of the site, I have websites on shared hosting companies, VPS platforms, dedicated servers, and even many managed hosting platforms.

No one comes close to offering the level of support that SiteGround does. Just read these 3900+ SiteGround user reviews from WPBeginner readers, and that’s for their regular hosting plans (not the enterprise plan).

On the Enterprise plan, we have a personal account manager along with a 24/7 dedicated Enterprise engineer team.

When I say 24/7, I really mean it. Their enterprise support is offered through a Private Slack Channel where we can use the @here tag which pages the engineer on duty to respond. Their response times are nearly instant, and the engineers are true experts.

We also have direct personal phone access to the enterprise team as well in case of emergencies during holidays.

Other enterprise hosting companies that we work with also offer Slack support, but their paging system and availability isn’t up to par with SiteGround.

4. Development Workflow that Scales

Our team has various testing and deployment workflows that require custom setup, permission control, etc.

Over the last 3 years, SiteGround enterprise team has worked alongside our developers to not only build new workflows but improve existing ones to ensure the smoothest process.

Not to mention, they have built custom tools to improve speed and reliability of our various websites based on the specific platform needs.

5. Faster Go to Market with Native Google Services

One of the biggest advantages of using a cloud platform like Amazon or Google is their native services.

Instead of wasting time developing and managing custom solutions, SiteGround uses Google’s native services to solve the problems faster and more reliably.

For example, Google’s Cloud SQL has simply replaced the custom MySQL cluster management software which has made things way more efficient.

Instead of using an internal alert and monitoring system, SiteGround is using a smart Google Stackdriver integration to monitor each virtual machine instance from various regions, so we can ensure maximum uptime with automated failover.

We also swapped out WPBeginner blog search with Google’s Custom Search API, so you can now see WPBeginner site search results without any of the Google Ads that were shown previously.

There are also plans to use other Google Cloud services as we expand to unlock performance and reliability improvements.

6. Reduced Costs and Complexity with Maximum Performance

Just six months ago, I wrote a blog post highlighting a custom infrastructure that we built with our previous hosting provider. While the setup was powerful, it introduced a lot of costs and complexities when it came to management.

Since SiteGround enterprise team has worked with us over the last three years on our eCommerce websites, and they regularly work with other enterprise clients as well, they have streamlined a lot of the processes.

Their team knows how to unlock maximum performance improvements without introducing complicated services.

Our front-end website (that readers see), stayed blazing fast as always. But we unlocked massive performance improvements on the back-end and uncached pages.

On average, we’re seeing between 72% to 100% improvements on uncached pages.

Here’s a screenshot of the admin load time:

Final Thoughts – SiteGround Review

I first started testing and recommending SiteGround in 2013. Since then, I have seen them make significant improvements to their platform while maintaining top notch customer service.

In 2015, I switched one of my other popular blogs to SiteGround. At the time that blog received few hundred million pageviews annually (I sold that website in 2018).

After I saw how efficiently SiteGround managed that website, we slowly started moving our other sites on SiteGround.

In 2017, we signed up for their Enterprise Hosting plan to start moving our eCommerce websites. Over the last three years, our CTO and lead developers have worked closely with SiteGround.

Their team including Hristo, Daniel, Ivan S, and Ivan Y have earned our trust time and time again. You know it’s true when a paying customer (me) sends you a Christmas gift basket.

That’s why when we re-evaluated our technology stack after last Black Friday sales, it was an easy decision for me to finally move WPBeginner and few other sites over to SiteGround, so they can be managed by the same expert team.

While WPBeginner is on SiteGround’s enterprise hosting plan, I also have few websites on their shared hosting and two sites on their dedicated servers.

I highly recommend SiteGround for websites of all sizes. Whether you need WordPress hosting, specialized WooCommerce hosting, or even custom enterprise hosting solution like the one we have, you’ll get the best service.

All their plans are now running on Google Cloud Platform, they offer dynamic caching + speed optimization, a guided setup wizard, along with staging and other smart workflow tools.

The best part is their pricing is extremely competitive in all areas. Startup plans are $3.95 per month, and their GoGeek plan is $11.95 per month which is 70% lower than other managed hosting platforms.

If I were to rate SiteGround, I would give them a perfect 5 out of 5.

I hope you found this article helpful. If you’re thinking about switching web hosting and want a hosting provider that will make your website fast while offering top notch support, then definitely check out SiteGround.

Full Disclosure: No we did not get paid to write this SiteGround review. We’re happy paying customers of SiteGround. They have a referral program available for all their customers, so if you decide to use SiteGround by clicking on our referral link in this article, then we will get a small commission. However we only recommend services that we personally use and believe will add value to our readers.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 6 Reasons Why WPBeginner Switched to SiteGround Hosting appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 04, 2020 at 07:59PM

How to Create a Separate Page for Blog Posts in WordPress

Do you want to create a separate page for blog posts in WordPress? By default, WordPress displays your blog posts on the homepage.

However, if you are making a business website or simply want to customize your homepage, then you may want a separate page for your blog section.

In this article, we will show you how to easily create a separate page for blog posts in WordPress.

Setup WordPress to Create a Separate Blog Page

WordPress allows you to easily configure your website to have a custom home page. This feature also allows you to choose any other page on your website to be used as your blog page.

First, you need to create two pages in WordPress that you would like to use as your homepage and blog page.

You don’t need to add any content to those pages, and you can even name them anything else if you want. For instance, some business websites use News for their blog page.

Once you have created those pages, you can head over to the Settings » Reading page in the WordPress admin area.

Under the ‘Your homepage displays’ section, you need to click on the ‘ A static page’ option. After that, you can select the home and blog pages you created earlier.

You can now go to Pages » All Pages section in admin area. You’ll notice your blog and homepage with new labels. Go ahead, and click on the View link under those pages to preview them.

The appearance of these pages depends on your WordPress theme, and you may need to configure your theme settings.

Since each WordPress theme has different options, you’ll have to check out your theme’s documentation or check the options under Appearance » Customize page.

We’ll also show you other methods later in this article.

Put The Blog Page Link to Your Website’s Navigation Menu

Now that you have created a separate blog page let’s help your website visitors find that.

Simply visit the Appearance » Menus page and add the Blog page you created earlier to your website’s navigation menu.

For more detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide to navigation menus in WordPress.

Customizing Your Homepage

By default, many WordPress themes come with a built-in template to display a static page as your website’s front page. However, you’ll still need to set it up under Appearance » Customize.

Some WordPress themes also allow you to choose a homepage template for your page. If your theme comes with such a template, then you can select it by editing the Home page.

Finally, you can use a WordPress page builder plugin to use simple drag and tools to create your homepage from scratch.

We recommend using Beaver Builder as it is the best WordPress WordPress page builder plugin on the market. It is super-easy to use, includes ready-made templates, and super-flexible to create any layout you want.

For more details, see our tutorial on how to create a how to create a custom home page in WordPress.

Customize Your Blog Page Design

By default, WordPress automatically looks for a template in your WordPress theme to display posts on a separate blog page.

If your theme does not have one, then it automatically falls back to the archive template. For more details, see our guide on the WordPress template hierarchy.

Now, if you don’t like how your theme handles your blog page, then you can change that using some extra tools and without writing any code.

First, you will need to install and activate the Beaver Builder and Beaver Themer plugins. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Beaver Themer is an add-on plugin for Beaver Builder and enables you to not just create pages but entire new WordPress themes from scratch.

First, you need to visit Beaver Builder » Themer Layouts page and click on the Add New button.

From here you can provide a name for your layout, select ‘Themer Layout’ as your type, and then select Archive as your layout.

This will create a themer layout for the archive templates. On the next screen, you need to select ‘Post Archive’ for location option and then click on the ‘Launch Beaver Builder’ button.

This will open the Beaver Builder with your selected layout. You can simply point and click at any item on the screen and start editing it. You can also add new rows, columns, and web elements to the page.

For more details, see our guide on how to create a custom WordPress theme (without coding).

Once you are finished editing, you can simply publish your layout. After that, visit your blog page to see it in action.

We hope this article helped you create a separate page for blog posts in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase blog traffic and our list of must have WordPress plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Separate Page for Blog Posts in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 03, 2020 at 06:00PM

How to Use Cookie Retargeting in WordPress to Show Custom On-Site Messages

Do you want to use cookie retargeting in WordPress? Cookie retargeting is the secret tool already used by many of the most popular websites.

It allows you to show custom on-site messages to your users based on their past behavior which helps you boost sales.

In this article, we’ll show you how to use cookie retargeting in WordPress to show custom on-site messages and boos conversions.

What is Cookie Retargeting?

Cookie retargeting is a marketing technique where websites use cookies to track user behavior and offer a personalized experience.

There are two types of cookie retargeting techniques.

First, there is the off-site cookie retargeting. This method is used to track user activities across the web.

Facebook pixel and Google remarketing are two of the most popular advertising programs that allow you to use their massive reach and show targetted ads to people who visit your website.

Secondly, you have on-site cookie retargeting which allows you to show targeted messages to users based on how they interact with your website.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files containing pieces of data. Websites set cookies in users’ browsers to store temporary information such as login status, user preferences, session details, and more.

How to Use On-Site Cookie Retargeting to Boost Conversions?

There are a number of ways website owners use on-site retargeting messages to boost conversions and increase sales.

For instance, eCommerce stores can show custom offers to users based on how they interacted with other offers. This allows you to create a dynamic sales funnel that leads users to make a purchase.

Another use-case scenario would be lead generation. With on-site retargeting, if a user closes one sign up form, then you can show them a different message with another offer.

On-site retargeting messages are highly effective because:

• It shows personalized messages to users at the time when they are already engaged with your website.
• Allows you to create customized campaigns that get better with each user interaction until they convert
• You save money on paid advertising campaigns by utilizing your existing website traffic to the max

That being said, let’s take a look a how to use cookie retargeting in WordPress.

Creating On-Site Retargeting Campaign in WordPress

The best way to create on-site retargeting messages is by using OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization and lead generation software in the world.

You can use it to easily create attention-grabbing signup forms, popups, welcome mats, in-line offers, custom offers, and more.

First, you need to signup for an OptinMonster account. You’ll need at least their Pro plan for cookie retargeting and Growth plan for followup campaigns.

Next, you’ll need to install and activate the OptinMonster plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin acts as a connector between your WordPress site and the OptinMonster app.

Upon activation, you need to click on the OptinMonster menu in your WordPress admin sidebar to connect WordPress with your OptinMonster account.

Follow the on-screen instructions to authorize your website with OptinMonster.

For this tutorial, we’ll first create a campaign to set up the cookie and offer users a discount. After that, we’ll create on-site retargeting and follow-up campaigns.

Let’s start with our first campaign. Simply click on the ‘Create New Campaign’ button to launch the OptinMonster builder.

This will take you to the OptinMonster website where you’ll be asked to choose a campaign type and a template.

You can choose any campaign type or template but for this tutorial, we’ll be creating a lightbox popup.

Next, you’ll be asked to provide a name for your campaign and select your website. After that, you’ll enter the campaign builder interface.

It is a powerful design tool where you can simply point and click on any item to edit it. You can also add new items like blocks, buttons, images, columns, and more.

Once you are satisfied, simply switch to the publish tab and make your campaign live by changing its status.

Now by default, OptinMonster will show this campaign to all users who visit your website. Users will be able to close the popup or perform your desired action.

Creating a Retargeting Campaign to Show Custom Messages

Now that you have launched your first campaign, let’s add another campaign using the followup retargeting feature.

Click on the create new campaign button in the OptinMonster dashboard and select your campaign type and template. Since we have used lightbox popup, we’ll be using a ‘Floating bar’ as our retargeting campaign.

Next, you’ll enter your campaign name and select the website. After that, you’ll enter the OptinMonster builder where you can design your campaign using simple drag and drop tools.

You can edit the optin text, add a countdown timer to generate FOMO, add a coupon, and so much more.

Once you are satisfied with the design, it is time to select which users you want to show this custom message.

Simply switch to the Display Rules tab in the builder.

OptinMonster offers a ton of display rules that you can choose from. You can also add multiple rulesets.

Under the if menu, select ‘Visitor has closed’ → ‘Campaign’ → and then select your previous campaign.

Next, you need to switch to the Publish tab and change your campaign status to live.

You can now visit your website in the incognito browser tab to see your campaign and the follow up retargeting message.

Adding Cookie Retargeting with Custom Messages

Cookie retargeting allows you to show custom messages to users based on their previous actions, cart status, shopping history, and more.

This allows you to create promotions and upsells designed for customers at different stages of your sales funnel.

Simply create a new OptinMonster campaign and design it with your custom message.

Once you are done, you need to switch to the Display Rules tab.

Under the if menu, you need to select ‘a cookie’ and then select the key and cookie value.

The key is the cookie name and the value parameter are the contents of the cookie. OptinMonster provides you a bunch of options to match the cookie or its value.

For instance, if you are using WooCommerce then you can use WooCommerce cookies to target users who have added products in their cart.

After adding cookie retargeting rules, go ahead and publish your campaign.

OptinMonster will now display your custom message based on cookie targetting rules you have set.

We hope this article helped you learn how to use cookie retargeting in WordPress to show custom on-site messages. You may also want to see our guide on how to recover abandoned cart sales in WooCommerce as well as our comparison of the best live chat software for websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Use Cookie Retargeting in WordPress to Show Custom On-Site Messages appeared first on WPBeginner.

March 02, 2020 at 05:37PM